


a study in friendship

by angstlairde



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Gen, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 08:05:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17260607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angstlairde/pseuds/angstlairde
Summary: The stars are going out.A study in Zuko and death





	a study in friendship

**Author's Note:**

> i cant even blame this on a Random Tumblr Anon bc i asked Random Tunblr Anon to request this

Aang was the first one to go. 

One hundred years in an iceberg began to take their toll once he hit fifty, and it was all downhill from there. 

It was so strange. Aang was dead. Zuko still couldn't believe it sometimes. Once he and Katara had their first child, his travels had decreased dramatically, but he was always available to anyone in need. 

He was always available to write to, too, and it wasn't right if Zuko didn't have a letter on his desk every morning containing a short anecdote of something funny Bumi did, or a joke to "start the morning right," Aang always said.

And then there were no more letters  

* * *

 Sokka was the next.  

Both of them had known the four Red Lotus who tried to kidnap Korra hadn’t been the only ones. Zuko should have been more careful, more vigilant - made sure Sokka was more alert. An assassin had snuck into his house. The assassin was found dead on the floor, meteor blade thrust through his heart, and Sokka on the floor by the window.

They said Sokka bled out, and Yue held his hand as he died. 

It never occured to Zuko just how much Sokka had meant to him - his best friend, well - one of them. No more letters with exaggerated tales born on Hawky Junior. No more sparring sessions. No more pai sho tournments. 

Hawky Junior got a rook in with the other birds at the palace. He cried for Sokka at night, circling the building. 

He wasn't the only one who cried. 

* * *

 There's a space of time in which nothing happens worth noting, unless you count the accomplishments of his talented grandson, which he does, until he gets a telegram on his desk late one night.

It's from Katara, and he feels the recently unfamiliar but never forgettable pit of dread curling tight in his gut. Katara's letters are always regular, and she never sends telegrams unless something has happened.

Suki's hard earned years have taken their toll - all the security jobs and tracking jobs and various kinds of work the Kyoshi did post-war were hard on her body. A quick and hard fever had confined her to the bed for five days. Nothing Katara did could stop it.

They want Zuko at her funeral. 

* * *

 When Zuko recieves a telegram from Tenzin - much more common now, than letters, to convey important information and no where near as alarming anymore - he doesn't expect it to say Katara had passed away last night. 

The paper drops from his fingers and he can only stare blankly at it as Izumi rushes over to him and helps him sit. 

Katara... Katara is dead. The words don't make sense.

Spirits. Zuko feels so old.

If you told him back when he was a teenager, brash and hotheaded and so alone, so lonely, that the Water Tribe girl, the last waterbender left in the South Pole would one day be one of his best friends, he would have laughed. Maybe. He hadn't done much laughing then. 

Katara is dead. Katara is dead, and so is Aang and Sokka and Suki. He and Toph are the only ones left and he hasn't seen her since - he can't remember. Maybe Bolin and Opal's wedding. 

"Katara... Katara is dead," he says, and the words feel false. Izumi holds his hand and Mai enters the room as he speaks. She doesn't say anything as she sits next to him. 

* * *

 He doesn't wait to get a telegram about a body found in the foggy swamp - he start searching for Toph. Spirits know she won't die easy, but the spirits aren't to be stopped. Not even the Avatar herself could stop death. 

Zuko shows up in Republic City one evening and Lin is there to greet him. He can't remember when she got so old. It means he must be very old, indeed.  

"Suyin's been searching," she says in greeting as she steps into his hug. He might normally make a joke about letting her sister get a head start. He doesn't. 

"You don't mind leaving the city?" he asks instead, one arm wrapped around her shoulders to help him along as the other grasps his cane. 

Lin looks away.

"I'm not chief of police anymore, Uncle Zuko."

"No," Zuko agrees. "No, you're not."

Though Zuko has never been in the foggy swamp himself, he does not forget the stories Aang, Sokka, and Katara have told him. As he searches, Azula - Azula, who died a few years ago in her sleep, or that's what the public was told, because the truth was too painful - follows him at every step and taunts or maybe apologizes or maybe hurls insults. He's long ago learnes to tune out her lies. 

Except maybe that is his problem.

So often the words that came out of Azula's mouth were half-truths, or horrible truths that he had to believe were lies.

"How do you like being the last of your pitiful little group, Zu-zu?" she asks, perched on the edge of a root.  

"I'm not," he argues against his better judgement. He doesn't know where Lin got to.

"Aren't you?" Azula voice is almost sad, almost genuine - surprisngly genuine and the look on her face before she disappears is mournful.

Toph is lying on a cot in her root-cave, back to the entrance. 

"Toph!" he exclaims eagerly, and moves a little too fast for his old body. "Toph, I -"

But Zuko is a fool. He thinks it is his curse. Suyin and Lin find him in the root-cave, carefully cradling Toph.

Too late. Always too late.

* * *

"Grandfather?" Iroh's voice is soft and careful as he kneels by Zuko's bed. Zuko cracks his eyes open and tilts his head towards his grandson. 

"What's the formality for, little dragon?" he asks, reaching to touch Iroh's nose. His stoic face - facade, perhaps - crumples and he leans into Zuko's hand.

"I don't want you to go. I don't want you to go, Granddad," he whispers. 

"I know you don't. I'll miss you so much." 

Iroh's eyes shut as tears leak out and clutches Zuko's hand. Then he sniffs.

"Mom wants to see you again."

"Is anyone going to stop her?" Zuko asks, in an attempt to joke. Iroh was one of the only ones who seemed to appreciate Zuko's jokes. Iroh doesn't laugh this time.

Iroh leans over and kisses Zuko's temple, and then leaves. Izumi whirls in a moment later and throws herself next to Zuko, pressing her face into his beard like she used to.

"It's alright, my darling," Zuko says, threading his fingers carefully through her hair.

"But I already lost Mom. Why you too?" she asks, crying.  

"That's the way the world turns, my love. The old must make way for the new, and the sun must set so the moon may rise."

"I wish it didn't," Izumi says, an echo of the petulant child she used to be on occasion. 

"I know," Zuko murmurs and turns his face to the open window. The sky is turning gray before the dawn. 

"The stars are going out," he murmurs, as the sky turns purple and the sun peaks over the horizon, “and so must I.”

**Author's Note:**

> im collecting death threats, submit below


End file.
